Sleeping with a Killer (2022–…): Season 1, Episode 5 - Brenda Delgado - full transcript
2015 Dallas, Texas: Brenda Delgado couldn't move on with life after a breakup. She hires 2 people, Crystal Cortes + Kristopher Love to murder her ex's new friend Kendra Hatcher and flees to Mexico, where she is captured by law enf...
- [Narrator] September
2015, Dallas, Texas.
Police are called to a garage
in a high-end apartment complex.
A body has been found.
- It was almost like an
execution-style murder.
I mean, she had no warning
that this was coming.
- The bullet entered in
the back of her skull
and actually came out
underneath her chin area.
- [Narrator] But the
profile of the victim
and the manner of death
lead investigators
to believe that this is
more than a random shooting.
- I felt like there
was more to the story.
There was no random circumstance
that caused this murder,
that they were there
for a specific reason
and they were waiting
on our victim.
- [Narrator] What
detectives soon uncover
is a complex conspiracy.
- Just the lengths that
someone would go to
to try to get back
with an ex-boyfriend.
- I don't think she even thought
about covering her tracks.
It was all about
getting this done.
This focus of I need to get
Kendra hatcher out of the way
so I can get Ricky back.
- Unfortunately there
are people in this world
who would kill
another human being
and not give it
a second thought.
- [Narrator] This is the
story of the tragic murder
of Kendra hatcher,
the detailed and methodical
search for her killer,
and a motive which
police soon learn
was triggered by
jealousy and rage.
(Dramatic music)
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It's just after 8pm on the
evening of September 2nd, 2015.
Police respond to a 911
call from a luxurious,
high-rise apartment
building in Dallas's uptown.
- I responded to that and
was told by the officers
that were securing
the scene outside
that there was someone
that was deceased
inside of the parking lot.
- I saw a white Toyota Camry
pulled in a parking space.
The driver's side
of the vehicle,
the victim was
laying on the ground.
There was a pool of
blood around her head.
- She was dressed in
black doctor's scrubs
and her name was embroidered
on the front of her shirt.
- It was definite that
she had been shot.
Next to the body there was
a magazine from a handgun,
a spent round and
a shell casing.
- [Narrator] The police
request the attendance
of the medical examiner.
- The medical examiner
did arrive at the scene
and he was able to confirm
that she was deceased
from one gunshot
wound to the head.
The bullet entered in
the back of her skull
and actually came out
underneath her chin area.
- [Narrator] The police
have already been able
to confirm the identity
of the deceased.
- The officers
prior to my arrival
checked the license
plate on the car
and that came back
as Kendra hatcher
being the owner of the vehicle,
which matched what
was on her shirt also.
- [Narrator] Detectives
now begin to examine
what evidence they can find.
- The cell phone at
the scene was given
to the homicide investigators.
Obviously they
wanted to find out
what numbers had
been recently called
or dialed on that phone,
what messages had come in.
The pistol magazine which
was also found at the scene
with 13 live rounds in it,
I took that to our
crime scene lab
and processed for latent prints.
- We looked for her
purse and we found out
that her purse was missing,
and so we just began doing
our normal course
of investigation,
looked for witnesses
and also video cameras
inside the parking garage.
- [Narrator] Officers
establish Kendra Hatcher's
last movements.
- I found out that Kendra
was actually a resident
in that building and that she
was on her way home from work.
September 2nd was her last
day at work for a few days
because she was
going on a vacation.
- [Narrator] Kendra's fiancé,
Ricardo "Ricky"
Paniagua, soon arrives.
- One of the most painful
parts of this whole story
that I think of is
that Ricky, the fiancé,
was coming back into the
apartment complex with dinner
and there was
something going on,
there were like police
ropes and sirens
and things were going on.
He didn't know
what was going on.
- After speaking with him
for a couple of minutes,
Ricky was able to tell
me that him and Kendra
had been dating
for several months
and he was meeting
Kendra at her apartment
that evening to have dinner.
Once he found out that
we found Kendra deceased,
you could just see like, just
the color go from his body.
He almost went into
a state of shock
once he was able to
connect the dots.
(Somber piano music)
- [Narrator] Police
begin to piece together
more information about Kendra.
- She had a very
humble life growing up.
Her mother owned a blanket
shop in Springfield, Illinois,
she was a cheerleader
in high school
and she also was a very
devoted to her religion.
- She was a rising star
in her world of dentistry.
She was someone that
helped many, many people.
- She worked with a
clinic in the mid cities
between Dallas and fort
worth that specialized
in lower-income kids because
she wanted to help kids.
- She also volunteered
her time giving back
to poor children
in South America,
donating her
abilities as a dentist
and her time and her
effort to help kids
that couldn't afford dentistry.
- [Narrator] In recent months,
Ricky and Kendra have
become very close.
- She had told her family
that she was super excited
about meeting this guy.
She said that they were
clicking and, that, you know,
he's a dermatologist and
that they would probably
end up moving in a year or
so after his residency ended.
And she just seemed to
be really, super happy
and excited about life.
- [Narrator] A clue to
what has happened to Kendra
comes from the footage captured
on the apartment complex's
security camera system.
- On the surveillance
footage, we're able to see
the victim come in
to the parking garage
and go to her normal
parking space.
We also found a footage of
an older model Jeep Cherokee.
This Jeep Cherokee was
waiting in the visitor portion
of the parking garage and they
followed another vehicle in
and parked in a parking space
before our victim got there.
- She started to
get out of her car;
an assailant walked up and
basically executed her.
Shot her in the head,
took her purse and fled.
- The individual walked back
to the back seat of the Jeep.
The Jeep went out the wrong
direction in the parking garage,
made a u-turn and
then they exited.
- [Narrator] But
there are limitations
to what the police
can see on the CCTV.
- After looking at the video,
there was no way we could tell
what kind of license plate
was on that vehicle
and we had information
that it may have
been a paper tag.
- [Narrator] Police
feel the public
might be able to help them.
- They made the
decision to release
that tape to the public and say,
"hey, has anybody
seen this vehicle
or do you know what's
going on or this is...
You know, this is very
much of interest to us."
And I think that was
very, very key for them,
because that helped
move the case along.
- I felt like there
was more to the story.
There was no random circumstance
that caused this murder,
that they were there
for a specific reason
and they were waiting
on our victim.
- [Narrator] Police have
some security footage,
a murdered woman, and
a distraught fiancé.
But they have little
else to point to a motive
for what clearly is the clinical
killing of Kendra hatcher.
- [Narrator] Dallas,
Texas, 2015.
Police are
investigating the murder
of 35-year-old dentist
Kendra hatcher.
Most of the incident has been
caught on security footage.
Detectives have released
the tape publicly
in the hopes it might elicit
a response and information.
It does.
- The media interest, it
did help the case, obviously.
I mean, when the news
footage of the Jeep Cherokee
leaving the garage, you
know, that jump started
the investigation when
the owner called in.
- [Narrator] The man
is José Luis Ortiz
and he claims he lent his Jeep
to a friend, Brenda Delgado.
- [Narrator] With this
connection to the vehicle,
Brenda Delgado immediately
becomes a person of interest.
Detectives try to
establish more about her
and her background.
- Her parents immigrated
from Mexico to America
so she still had dual
citizenship in both countries.
They were good
working class folks.
She graduated from
an area high school.
There wasn't money to go to
college so she started working.
She got interested
in the dental field.
She was coming back to school
and slowly finishing
dental hygienist school
when she was in her 30s.
- [Narrator] The interesting
thing about Brenda Delgado
is that she is the former
girlfriend of Ricky,
the fiancé of Kendra hatcher.
- She had been with Mr Paniagua
several times, dating him.
They broke it off.
He then met Kendra hatcher.
- Brenda was by all means
crazy in love with him,
fascinated by him.
They met the first time, got
together, had a relationship.
He broke it off.
And then at some
point after that,
they started to get
together casually.
I would assume that that meant
they were probably hooking up
but it wasn't anything more.
It wasn't a romantic
relationship
or a long-term relationship.
- [Narrator] However, Brenda
doesn't see things that way.
- There were times when she
would seem emotionally unstable.
There would be times where
she would be overly clingy
and just kind of
overly attached to him,
and I felt like, you know,
that kind of fit in with
the theme on this case,
more so than a robbery.
- [Narrator] It appears her
view of the relationship
has become obsessive.
- She would be out for a run
on Katy trail here in Dallas
and she would suddenly
run into him, you know.
Make it appear that
it was coincidental
when in fact it wasn't, it
was she was stalking him,
so I think at that point
she was just obsessed
and she wanted to get him
back any way she could.
(Suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] For police,
it's time to get face-to-face
with Brenda Delgado.
- Brenda gets called in
for a voluntary interview
and she's cooperative.
The Dallas police,
smart as a bug,
those folks taped everything.
- [Narrator] Brenda gives
the detectives her version
of how she spent
Wednesday September 2nd,
the day Kendra
hatcher was murdered.
- She told me that
early that morning,
she met up with
her friend crystal.
They were having some
problems with their vehicle
and she took it to José's shop.
José's a mechanic.
José looked at it and told
her needed to work on it,
and she borrowed his Jeep.
She said that she had
a study date that day
with some friends and
crystal dropped her off
at a public library and she
spent most of the day studying.
She also told me that
the library had cameras
and it also had a sign-in log
that I could check
for her signature.
- [Narrator] This
level of detail
immediately raises a red flag.
- Most people don't pay
attention to locations
having cameras or sign-in logs.
It was like it was
already Pre-formatted.
- [Narrator] Brenda can also
supply very specific details
about where she was at the
time of Kendra's death.
- She probably figured if
she just showed the receipt
an officer would say sure,
you weren't there, thank you.
And that would be over.
Fortunately that's
not the way it works
in the world of crime.
- Most people when they come
down to talk about murder,
they're really nervous
and kind of taken back.
Either they're going to
be overwhelmed emotionally
because someone lost their life,
they're going to be afraid
because they're being questioned
in a homicide investigation.
She didn't seem to match
any of those descriptions.
She was very cool, calm and
collected and very organized.
- [Narrator]
Detectives begin to get
more specific with Delgado.
- [Narrator] Detective
Barnes needs to find out
more about the vehicle used
when the murder occurred.
- I began to press her on
who would have this Jeep,
so when I pressed
her on her location
and whether she was
driving the Jeep,
she pointed the finger
at crystal and said,
"you need to talk with her."
- [Narrator] Detectives
now bring Brenda's friend,
crystal Cortes, in
for questioning.
- So, she is in the
police headquarters
at the same time as Brenda is,
and they are interviewing
both of them,
taping both of them,
and then super-helpful
for information back and forth.
- There was a lot of different
stories from crystal.
The first version
was that she was
looking for a parking space
because she was going out
to eat at a nearby restaurant.
And she just happened to park
inside the parking garage
at the gable 17 and
she heard a loud noise
and decided to leave
the parking garage.
- I confronted her
with the fact that
I actually saw someone
get out of her vehicle
and walk towards Dr. Hatcher.
- [Narrator] Immediately,
crystal's story changes.
- Crystal starts
making up stories
about she was just driving
along the park with her son
and this scary man jumped
in and told her to drive
or he was gonna kill her.
And then she drove to
the apartment complex
and had no idea what happened.
- [Narrator] However, she's
confronted with the fact
that there's no sign of
anyone who could be considered
to be her son on the tape.
- She switched up
the story to be
this friend of Brenda's and her
drove into the apartment complex
and the motive was
gonna be robbery
and she was just gonna
drive the getaway car
and they were going to
be away with some money
and she was going to get $500
and they were
gonna scare Kendra.
- [Narrator] But
crystal Cortes has done
no more than implicate herself.
- When crystal admitted
that Brenda paid her $500
to go to the parking garage
with this unknown male
who was armed with a
firearm, she self-admitted,
she put herself at
the crime scene.
That was enough to charge her.
We charged her with
capital murder.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile, Brenda
is still being interviewed
by detectives.
- The more I watched
Brenda Delgado,
the more I just
knew she was lying.
They kept the film running
when they would like
leave the room or
like, you know,
"do you want to take
a bathroom break?"
Or, "do you want some
snacks?" Or whatever.
So, they were friendly to her.
But there would be times when
she was on camera by herself,
detectives were out of the
room, talking to crystal Cortes.
- She was just like
oh, (mouthing silently).
And she was doing
things like this
and I think she was
realizing the trouble
that she had stepped into
and that what was happening
while the detectives
were interviewing her.
- [Narrator] Agent Barnes now
turns up the heat on Delgado.
- I began pressing
Brenda really hard
about where she was
at, what she was doing,
and why they were there and
what they were there for.
And I think that once I
began pressing buttons,
Brenda felt like she
was gonna unravel
and end up being charged, she
just asked for an attorney.
- [Narrator] Brenda
clearly hasn't been
to the scene of the murder.
Detectives don't have enough
evidence to charge her,
but instinctively they know
she is involved in some way.
- They felt they did not have
enough to issue a warrant
for arrest for murder, but
they wanted to hold her.
They ran her background check
and she had a whole bunch
of parking violations,
enough to be arrested.
- Collectively we decided
it would be better
to just put her in jail
for her traffic tickets
than to charge her with
murder and have to release her
if we couldn't
find enough details
to prove it at that point.
- [Narrator] But
Brenda has other plans.
- As soon as somebody
comes down here,
where she on her own,
pays the three or 400
dollars that's owed,
whatever's the fine
that's not paid,
as soon as you pay that,
they release you immediately,
and so it's not like you're
sticking them in jail
on some kind of a serious charge
where they're gonna have
to wait and see a judge
and you're gonna
have to go through
at least an 18-hour process.
You're putting her in there,
she's gonna be out
potentially in a few,
you know, a couple of, two
to four hours, which she was.
- We found out
that she left jail.
She caught a taxi
to a local hospital
and she called her father
and asked her father
to pick her up.
- [Narrator] Within hours,
Brenda Delgado flees the state
and crosses the
border into Mexico.
- She already had her
back-up plan in place
and at that point we were
just playing catch-up.
- [Narrator] Detectives now
believe that Brenda Delgado
is at the center of the
murder of Kendra hatcher.
- All of the early indicators
on this investigation
seem to point back to Brenda.
José didn't know Kendra;
Crystal didn't know Kendra;
it all pointed back at Brenda.
Brenda had the motive
to want Kendra dead.
(Dramatic music)
- [Narrator] In Dallas,
Texas, police are hunting
for Brenda Delgado, a
suspect in the murder
of 35-year-old dentist
Kendra hatcher.
Delgado has fled to
Mexico but investigators
are continuing to
question crystal Cortes,
Delgado's accomplice
who drove the Jeep
from which the killer
emerged to shoot Kendra.
However, they are still trying
to identify the shooter.
- Just crunching
down phone records
between Brenda and crystal,
we also located a phone
inside Brenda's apartment.
We got phone records
for that number
and all these phones had
a common phone number
that they were
communicating with
and we were able to
locate that phone number
and do some subpoenas for the
phone records on that phone.
- [Narrator] Police reach
out to federal agencies
for assistance.
- The FBI got involved about
a month after it happened.
At the time, they
hadn't identified
the shooter in the case.
They only knew him as Kris,
so they were looking
for help in that regard.
They had a telephone
number for Kris.
We were able to obtain
a search warrant
to obtain the real-time
location information
associated with that phone.
The pings on the phone brought
us to an apartment complex
in south Dallas.
- [Narrator] That same day,
crystal is brought in
for further questioning.
- She gives me a description
of the shooter's car
and she said he drives
a blue Chrysler sebring.
I pick my phone up and
I called the FBI agents
that were doing surveillance
out in this parking lot
and gave them the
car description
and they told me
that they see the car
in the same parking lot.
By watching the phone pings,
they noticed the
phone started moving
and they also noticed that
the blue Chrysler sebring
was moving at the same time
that the cellphone was moving.
And it pulls over
in a parking lot,
a couple of blocks away
from this apartment complex
and they walk up to
him and make contact.
- [Narrator] The man
is Kristopher love.
He is taken into custody
and the car is impounded.
- The car was towed
to the auto pound
and I began interviewing
Kristopher love.
I interviewed him all the way
through the course of the night
into the early morning
hours of October 2nd.
- Searching the car, they
didn't really find anything
and it was almost,
it was a little
bit of a dead end.
- [Narrator] Detectives
have drawn a blank,
so they turn to
another police resource
to intensify the investigation.
- A canine that was in
training at the time
was brought to the
Dallas auto pound.
The canine had been
trained to find explosives,
that could be anywhere from
gunpowder to bomb material, c4.
- They sniffed the car.
The dog wisely stopped
in a couple of places.
They found some residue
but they didn't find
enough evidence yet,
and then the dog zoomed
in on the console
in between the driver's
and passenger seat,
up the one side
and down the other.
So, that was super-helpful.
The investigators were
able to remove the panel
and lo and behold,
what's in there? A gun.
- [Narrator] Kristopher
love is confronted
with what the canine
has managed to uncover.
- Once I showed him a
picture of the firearm,
it was like somebody letting
the air out of a balloon.
His body language, he just
kind of sunk down in his chair,
his head dropped.
He tells me, "okay,
okay, I was there.
I was with crystal,
I got out of the Jeep
to walk over to
get Kendra's purse,
and crystal fired a shot
from the Jeep out the window
and it hit Kendra."
And he goes back into the
Jeep, and they drive away.
I saw the video and
what he was describing
was a scene out of
a James Bond movie.
There was no way crystal could
throw the car in reverse,
shoot out a passenger
window while backing up,
hit someone in the head
and one shot get it done.
And also the magazine
to the firearm
was laying next to the body.
So, I knew my shooter
was there close-range
and standing beside
Kendra whenever she died.
I actually pressed him a little
bit about being the shooter
and when he didn't feel
like there was any way out
and there was no
way to explain it
other than to tell the truth,
he asked for a lawyer.
- So, once he terminated
the interview,
I went back to my desk and
began typing his murder warrant,
capital murder warrant, and
he knocked on the door again.
He wanted to sit
and talk with me
and I told him I had to re-read
his Miranda warning again,
if he wanted to talk,
and he said okay.
And he just wanted to
ask me one question.
He wanted to know, why
did we let Brenda go?
I thought it was
pretty significant.
I thought that was
him saying hey,
you got me, now I
want you to get her.
- [Narrator] Crystal Cortes
is facing the inevitable.
- So, crystal was charged
with capital murder.
At some point she
agreed to a deal.
The deal was if you are truthful
and if you can testify
against Brenda,
we will recommend you
for 35 years to life.
But you will be pleading
guilty to capital murder.
- They needed crystal
to get to Brenda.
It was the only
opportunity for her.
17 and a half years.
You're eligible for parole.
You may or may not get
it, but you're eligible.
She's got a child.
She's got to be thinking
about a whole lot of things
and she doesn't want to be
locked up till the day she dies.
- She was the one who kind
of put the pieces together
for law enforcement, kind
of explained what happened
and allowed law
enforcement to arrest
the other people that
were involved in it.
- [Narrator] Detectives
know they have
crystal and Kristopher,
but now the spotlight
turns to Brenda Delgado.
They strongly suspect
that she has manipulated
the other two.
- One of the things that I
learned working this case
that Brenda was very
good at reading people.
She was able to sit
down with someone,
figure out who that person was,
figure out where
they were at in life
and specifically what
they needed in life.
- It was a business
transaction for them.
Should we beat him up, should
we kill her, should we...
They just handled it
as if it was business.
- She actually
offered crystal $500.
At the time crystal
was a single mother.
She was out of work because
her vehicle wasn't working
and she needed some mechanic
work done to her vehicle
and she didn't have the
money to get it done.
Brenda was able to figure
out that she needed money
to be able to go
to work every day
and take care of her child
and so she just kind
of dangled that carrot
in front of crystal to
get her to participate
in this murder.
- [Narrator] And it is
becoming apparent that Brenda
had lied to Kristopher in order
to manipulate him even further.
- Kristopher love
was a self-proclaimed
low-level drug dealer that
just moved to this Dallas area
and he wanted to be scarface.
He was looking forward
to being the next
up and coming drug
dealer in Dallas,
and Brenda picked up on that,
and that's what she offered him.
She told Kristopher that she
was part of a drug cartel
and that Kendra was actually
stealing drugs from the cartel
and if he participated
in this murder,
that he'd get a lifetime
supply of drugs.
- [Narrator] At the
center of everything
appears to be Brenda's
jealousy of Ricky's
new-found happiness with Kendra.
- I think her obsession
with Kendra hatcher
and losing Dr. Paniagua
was stronger than anything
she could think of.
She just had one goal in
mind and that was to either
hurt Dr. Paniagua, which was
one of the very first things
that came into their minds,
or remove Kendra hatcher
from the picture.
- On Brenda's phone, we
looked into the notes portion
of her phone and we
found an email address
for Ricardo and also a password.
Based on our interviews
with crystal,
crystal told us that Brenda
was able to track Ricardo
and she was able to
know where he was at.
- When Ricky and
Brenda were hooking up
the second time around,
Ricky was still helping her,
so they had a joint
cellphone account
and apparently that
account gave her access
to his phone online.
She had put tracking
software on his phone.
She was able to know where
that phone was, where he was.
- She would find his
location and she would go
and watch him and
then she would go
and have casual
encounters where she would
randomly bump into him and
have conversations with him.
- [Narrator] And her obsession
also extended to Kendra.
- In Brenda's phone she
had a bunch of pictures
and videos she downloaded
from Kendra's Facebook page.
She had been stalking
Ricardo and Kendra
at the same time, just
kind of staying up
with their relationship,
and I think she used
social media as a way
just to kind of figure
out what they were doing.
- [Narrator] It is
becoming clear that Brenda
was going to do whatever it
took to achieve her objective.
- Not only had she
approached crystal Cortes
and Kristopher love, we
interviewed some people
that she had approached before
about trying to convince them
to do the same thing,
namely her cousin,
having him attack Kendra
hatcher with a baseball bat.
He ultimately declined to do so,
so she had been
trying to find someone
who would carry this
out for some time.
- [Narrator] Crystal
was in too deep,
and was doing what
Brenda wanted.
- And speaking with crystal,
she told me that she
started going around
just talking to people
that they knew about,
you know, where
they could get a gun
and also if they would
be willing to help them
in this murder.
And through a mutual friend,
a gentleman by the
name of Kelly Ellis,
Kelly know Kristopher love
and he introduced them.
- For whatever reason
they just fell in
and the ball started rolling
and crystal started
agreeing to these things.
And she found a
shooter for Brenda,
she agreed to drive
the getaway vehicle,
she helped Brenda get rid
of evidence after the fact.
For $500 and some drugs.
- [Narrator] Delgado
was across the border.
In her mind, safe from the
authority of us law enforcement.
- My arrest authority ends
in the state of Texas,
and I think Brenda knew that.
She felt like she
was out of reach
of the Dallas police department,
but what she didn't plan for
is that we have a partnership
with the FBI and they've got
a worldwide jurisdiction.
- When people try to flee
the us to another country
to escape justice, that
always is a Thorn in my side.
So, I always give those cases
a little extra attention
because I wanna make sure
these people get caught
and brought back to the us.
I don't want people thinking
that they can flee our borders
and not answer the charges
that are brought against them.
- The FBI felt like the
longer that she was free,
the longer that she was
evading law enforcement,
that we were at risk for her
committing another offense.
- [Narrator] Dallas police now
move to make Brenda Delgado
an international
fugitive from justice.
- We were able to get her
on the FBI most wanted list.
I was pretty excited
about it because I knew
that I would get my
shot at her again.
- [Narrator] In 2016,
Dallas police and the FBI
are continuing
their investigation
into the murder of 35-year-old
dentist, Kendra hatcher.
Investigators have
apprehended the man
who pulled the trigger,
Kristopher love,
and the getaway
driver, crystal Cortes.
However, they are still
searching for the woman
they believe orchestrated
the crime, Brenda Delgado,
who was a fugitive in Mexico
and on the FBI's
most wanted list.
Detectives and agents
now intensified
their search for Delgado.
- We started interviewing
extended family members,
to see if we could get any
cooperation from them.
Initially we weren't successful.
They didn't want to co-operate.
But ultimately some of them did
and that was very helpful
in ultimately locating her.
- I believe the phone was
instrumental in tracking.
They were able to pick
up who she was calling
and where money
transfers were being made
for her to have money
to live on out there.
- We received information
that her family
was sending her money via
some money transfer business,
and we were able to
corroborate some of that.
We saw some money going
down to a state in Mexico
where we knew she had relatives.
- [Narrator] This information
is further corroborated
by a tip directly
to investigators.
- We received
information that Brenda
was at a specific
location in Mexico
and the tipster began
providing detailed information
of where Brenda was at.
- It allowed us to identify
her exact location in Mexico
and we relayed that to
Mexican Interpol officers
and they arrested her, you know,
within hours after we
passed on that information.
- [Narrator] Texas
authorities move to extradite
Brenda Delgado from Mexico
to the United States.
- It's a long
process to do that.
Our state department has
to reach out to comparable,
whoever is the comparable
authority in Mexico City.
I mean, I don't remember
how long that process took,
but I mean, six
months to a year.
I mean, it was a good while.
- [Narrator] For
the process to work,
certain conditions must be met.
- Brenda was a dual citizen,
Mexico citizenship and
American citizenship,
and Mexico has a standing policy
that they do not extradite
any of their nationals,
any of their citizens into
a death penalty situation.
- The deal was that
she would not be
put to death here in the states,
so in order for us to apprehend
her and bring her back,
we had to agree to that.
- We flew to Mexico
on October 5th, 2016.
We met Mexican authorities
in a hangar at the airport.
We searched her.
We placed the restraints on her
that she would be
wearing on the flight.
We were able to board the flight
before any of the
other passengers,
through the back entrance
and flew back to Dallas-fort
worth airport non-stop.
- I actually met her
when she arrived here.
I was the first
face that she saw
when she walked in
the airport hangar.
I'm a pretty competitive person,
and even though I
didn't get a chance
to interview her again,
in my mind I was like,
I told you I was gonna get you.
- [Narrator] Prosecutors
now need to prepare
for three trials.
Brenda Delgado, crystal
Cortes and Kristopher love.
- I've been working in
Dallas homicide unit
for a little over nine years
and out of every murderer
that I've come across,
Kristopher love is about
as cold as any murderer
that I've dealt with.
No sign of remorse, no sign
of emotion, no sign of regret.
- This is a vicious,
vicious, vicious person.
- Kristopher love was
sentenced to death.
He's still on death row
from what I understand
and I don't know if a date's
been set yet for that.
- [Narrator] Crystal Cortes'
fate has already been
more or less agreed.
- Crystal was charged with
capital murder as well.
Based on her agreement to
testify against Kristopher
and also to testify
against Brenda,
she was given 35
years in prison.
- [Narrator] In the
case of Brenda Delgado,
prosecutors paint a picture
of a ruthless manipulator.
- They did a great
job at pointing out
the specific facts
of this investigation
and just kind of like,
laying out who Brenda was.
You know, that she's not
just this pretty face
that you see sitting
in a courtroom,
that this lady is a monster.
- I don't think she
even thought much
about covering her tracks.
It was all about
getting this done.
This focus of I need to get
Kendra hatcher out of the way
so I can get Ricky back.
- Brenda had a very
blank look on her face,
almost like she was in disbelief
that she was actually
sitting in this courtroom
and that she was being held
accountable for what she did.
- I don't really know that
she felt right and wrong.
I don't really know
that she felt any guilt.
The best word I can come
up with is sociopathic.
- She just appeared
to be very nonchalant
and like everything was okay
and it would be
until the very end.
- [Narrator] When
the jury deliberates,
they are able to come
to a quick decision.
- So I was going down the
escalator and this is,
I mean, a little less 20
minutes since the jury went out,
and I get a text message,
"we've got a verdict."
- I think we
startled some folks.
We came back in half an hour.
It was not flippant, however;
It was not off-the-cuff.
We came back into the jury room
and someone suggested that
we take a sample look,
this is the gut check vote,
let's just write
down what we think
and then we'll start
talking about it.
So, a woman volunteered
to capture the notes.
We all wrote down
what we thought
and she opened them up and
they were all in one pile,
one after the other:
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
- That's very unusual.
In a capital murder case
for the jury to come back,
I heard estimates of 18 to 20
minutes that they deliberated.
Yeah, that's unheard of,
so they were convinced
beyond a reasonable doubt
that she committed this crime.
(Dramatic music)
(Calm piano music)
First and foremost, this was
a Dallas police department
homicide investigation and
everybody understood their roles
and everybody understood
that the primary goal
was to identify everybody
who was involved
in this murder for hire and
to get everybody arrested
and in a courtroom to face
the charges against them,
and I think every agency
did a great job at that.
- I think working
cases like this
just makes it hard for
you to trust individuals,
but on a positive note,
it's kind of offset
by all the positives
that I learned
from working with the family
and also the detectives
on this case.
- [Narrator] There may
be a victory of sorts
in the convictions,
but for the family of Kendra
hatcher, there is just loss.
- The thing that bothered
me the most about this case
was this could have been anyone.
Kendra is a truly
innocent victim
and she never saw
any of this coming.
For her to be ambushed
and assassinated
in a parking garage
like a animal.
It just kind of, it bothered me.
And it is one of those things
that you just never forget.
- It's such a senseless,
tragic loss of life
that didn't need to happen.
Just the lengths that
someone would go to
to try to get back
with an ex-boyfriend.
That's very chilling and
it's a stark reminder
of kind of the world we live in.
- [Narrator] Nothing
anyone can do
will bring Kendra hatcher back,
and for her family, the
pain of losing her endures.
- For the family, I don't
feel there's closure.
The word is a great word.
We hear it and we think
curtains are shut,
and we can no longer
see what's behind them.
But I do not believe that
there is true closure
in a case like this.
- Their daughter, sister was
taken from them in an instant,
without any warning
and without any reason.
So, I don't know how you
come to terms with that.
It's gotta be
extremely difficult.
- We can never bring back
Kendra, but we can say,
hey, we got the people
that were responsible.
(Somber music)
2015, Dallas, Texas.
Police are called to a garage
in a high-end apartment complex.
A body has been found.
- It was almost like an
execution-style murder.
I mean, she had no warning
that this was coming.
- The bullet entered in
the back of her skull
and actually came out
underneath her chin area.
- [Narrator] But the
profile of the victim
and the manner of death
lead investigators
to believe that this is
more than a random shooting.
- I felt like there
was more to the story.
There was no random circumstance
that caused this murder,
that they were there
for a specific reason
and they were waiting
on our victim.
- [Narrator] What
detectives soon uncover
is a complex conspiracy.
- Just the lengths that
someone would go to
to try to get back
with an ex-boyfriend.
- I don't think she even thought
about covering her tracks.
It was all about
getting this done.
This focus of I need to get
Kendra hatcher out of the way
so I can get Ricky back.
- Unfortunately there
are people in this world
who would kill
another human being
and not give it
a second thought.
- [Narrator] This is the
story of the tragic murder
of Kendra hatcher,
the detailed and methodical
search for her killer,
and a motive which
police soon learn
was triggered by
jealousy and rage.
(Dramatic music)
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It's just after 8pm on the
evening of September 2nd, 2015.
Police respond to a 911
call from a luxurious,
high-rise apartment
building in Dallas's uptown.
- I responded to that and
was told by the officers
that were securing
the scene outside
that there was someone
that was deceased
inside of the parking lot.
- I saw a white Toyota Camry
pulled in a parking space.
The driver's side
of the vehicle,
the victim was
laying on the ground.
There was a pool of
blood around her head.
- She was dressed in
black doctor's scrubs
and her name was embroidered
on the front of her shirt.
- It was definite that
she had been shot.
Next to the body there was
a magazine from a handgun,
a spent round and
a shell casing.
- [Narrator] The police
request the attendance
of the medical examiner.
- The medical examiner
did arrive at the scene
and he was able to confirm
that she was deceased
from one gunshot
wound to the head.
The bullet entered in
the back of her skull
and actually came out
underneath her chin area.
- [Narrator] The police
have already been able
to confirm the identity
of the deceased.
- The officers
prior to my arrival
checked the license
plate on the car
and that came back
as Kendra hatcher
being the owner of the vehicle,
which matched what
was on her shirt also.
- [Narrator] Detectives
now begin to examine
what evidence they can find.
- The cell phone at
the scene was given
to the homicide investigators.
Obviously they
wanted to find out
what numbers had
been recently called
or dialed on that phone,
what messages had come in.
The pistol magazine which
was also found at the scene
with 13 live rounds in it,
I took that to our
crime scene lab
and processed for latent prints.
- We looked for her
purse and we found out
that her purse was missing,
and so we just began doing
our normal course
of investigation,
looked for witnesses
and also video cameras
inside the parking garage.
- [Narrator] Officers
establish Kendra Hatcher's
last movements.
- I found out that Kendra
was actually a resident
in that building and that she
was on her way home from work.
September 2nd was her last
day at work for a few days
because she was
going on a vacation.
- [Narrator] Kendra's fiancé,
Ricardo "Ricky"
Paniagua, soon arrives.
- One of the most painful
parts of this whole story
that I think of is
that Ricky, the fiancé,
was coming back into the
apartment complex with dinner
and there was
something going on,
there were like police
ropes and sirens
and things were going on.
He didn't know
what was going on.
- After speaking with him
for a couple of minutes,
Ricky was able to tell
me that him and Kendra
had been dating
for several months
and he was meeting
Kendra at her apartment
that evening to have dinner.
Once he found out that
we found Kendra deceased,
you could just see like, just
the color go from his body.
He almost went into
a state of shock
once he was able to
connect the dots.
(Somber piano music)
- [Narrator] Police
begin to piece together
more information about Kendra.
- She had a very
humble life growing up.
Her mother owned a blanket
shop in Springfield, Illinois,
she was a cheerleader
in high school
and she also was a very
devoted to her religion.
- She was a rising star
in her world of dentistry.
She was someone that
helped many, many people.
- She worked with a
clinic in the mid cities
between Dallas and fort
worth that specialized
in lower-income kids because
she wanted to help kids.
- She also volunteered
her time giving back
to poor children
in South America,
donating her
abilities as a dentist
and her time and her
effort to help kids
that couldn't afford dentistry.
- [Narrator] In recent months,
Ricky and Kendra have
become very close.
- She had told her family
that she was super excited
about meeting this guy.
She said that they were
clicking and, that, you know,
he's a dermatologist and
that they would probably
end up moving in a year or
so after his residency ended.
And she just seemed to
be really, super happy
and excited about life.
- [Narrator] A clue to
what has happened to Kendra
comes from the footage captured
on the apartment complex's
security camera system.
- On the surveillance
footage, we're able to see
the victim come in
to the parking garage
and go to her normal
parking space.
We also found a footage of
an older model Jeep Cherokee.
This Jeep Cherokee was
waiting in the visitor portion
of the parking garage and they
followed another vehicle in
and parked in a parking space
before our victim got there.
- She started to
get out of her car;
an assailant walked up and
basically executed her.
Shot her in the head,
took her purse and fled.
- The individual walked back
to the back seat of the Jeep.
The Jeep went out the wrong
direction in the parking garage,
made a u-turn and
then they exited.
- [Narrator] But
there are limitations
to what the police
can see on the CCTV.
- After looking at the video,
there was no way we could tell
what kind of license plate
was on that vehicle
and we had information
that it may have
been a paper tag.
- [Narrator] Police
feel the public
might be able to help them.
- They made the
decision to release
that tape to the public and say,
"hey, has anybody
seen this vehicle
or do you know what's
going on or this is...
You know, this is very
much of interest to us."
And I think that was
very, very key for them,
because that helped
move the case along.
- I felt like there
was more to the story.
There was no random circumstance
that caused this murder,
that they were there
for a specific reason
and they were waiting
on our victim.
- [Narrator] Police have
some security footage,
a murdered woman, and
a distraught fiancé.
But they have little
else to point to a motive
for what clearly is the clinical
killing of Kendra hatcher.
- [Narrator] Dallas,
Texas, 2015.
Police are
investigating the murder
of 35-year-old dentist
Kendra hatcher.
Most of the incident has been
caught on security footage.
Detectives have released
the tape publicly
in the hopes it might elicit
a response and information.
It does.
- The media interest, it
did help the case, obviously.
I mean, when the news
footage of the Jeep Cherokee
leaving the garage, you
know, that jump started
the investigation when
the owner called in.
- [Narrator] The man
is José Luis Ortiz
and he claims he lent his Jeep
to a friend, Brenda Delgado.
- [Narrator] With this
connection to the vehicle,
Brenda Delgado immediately
becomes a person of interest.
Detectives try to
establish more about her
and her background.
- Her parents immigrated
from Mexico to America
so she still had dual
citizenship in both countries.
They were good
working class folks.
She graduated from
an area high school.
There wasn't money to go to
college so she started working.
She got interested
in the dental field.
She was coming back to school
and slowly finishing
dental hygienist school
when she was in her 30s.
- [Narrator] The interesting
thing about Brenda Delgado
is that she is the former
girlfriend of Ricky,
the fiancé of Kendra hatcher.
- She had been with Mr Paniagua
several times, dating him.
They broke it off.
He then met Kendra hatcher.
- Brenda was by all means
crazy in love with him,
fascinated by him.
They met the first time, got
together, had a relationship.
He broke it off.
And then at some
point after that,
they started to get
together casually.
I would assume that that meant
they were probably hooking up
but it wasn't anything more.
It wasn't a romantic
relationship
or a long-term relationship.
- [Narrator] However, Brenda
doesn't see things that way.
- There were times when she
would seem emotionally unstable.
There would be times where
she would be overly clingy
and just kind of
overly attached to him,
and I felt like, you know,
that kind of fit in with
the theme on this case,
more so than a robbery.
- [Narrator] It appears her
view of the relationship
has become obsessive.
- She would be out for a run
on Katy trail here in Dallas
and she would suddenly
run into him, you know.
Make it appear that
it was coincidental
when in fact it wasn't, it
was she was stalking him,
so I think at that point
she was just obsessed
and she wanted to get him
back any way she could.
(Suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] For police,
it's time to get face-to-face
with Brenda Delgado.
- Brenda gets called in
for a voluntary interview
and she's cooperative.
The Dallas police,
smart as a bug,
those folks taped everything.
- [Narrator] Brenda gives
the detectives her version
of how she spent
Wednesday September 2nd,
the day Kendra
hatcher was murdered.
- She told me that
early that morning,
she met up with
her friend crystal.
They were having some
problems with their vehicle
and she took it to José's shop.
José's a mechanic.
José looked at it and told
her needed to work on it,
and she borrowed his Jeep.
She said that she had
a study date that day
with some friends and
crystal dropped her off
at a public library and she
spent most of the day studying.
She also told me that
the library had cameras
and it also had a sign-in log
that I could check
for her signature.
- [Narrator] This
level of detail
immediately raises a red flag.
- Most people don't pay
attention to locations
having cameras or sign-in logs.
It was like it was
already Pre-formatted.
- [Narrator] Brenda can also
supply very specific details
about where she was at the
time of Kendra's death.
- She probably figured if
she just showed the receipt
an officer would say sure,
you weren't there, thank you.
And that would be over.
Fortunately that's
not the way it works
in the world of crime.
- Most people when they come
down to talk about murder,
they're really nervous
and kind of taken back.
Either they're going to
be overwhelmed emotionally
because someone lost their life,
they're going to be afraid
because they're being questioned
in a homicide investigation.
She didn't seem to match
any of those descriptions.
She was very cool, calm and
collected and very organized.
- [Narrator]
Detectives begin to get
more specific with Delgado.
- [Narrator] Detective
Barnes needs to find out
more about the vehicle used
when the murder occurred.
- I began to press her on
who would have this Jeep,
so when I pressed
her on her location
and whether she was
driving the Jeep,
she pointed the finger
at crystal and said,
"you need to talk with her."
- [Narrator] Detectives
now bring Brenda's friend,
crystal Cortes, in
for questioning.
- So, she is in the
police headquarters
at the same time as Brenda is,
and they are interviewing
both of them,
taping both of them,
and then super-helpful
for information back and forth.
- There was a lot of different
stories from crystal.
The first version
was that she was
looking for a parking space
because she was going out
to eat at a nearby restaurant.
And she just happened to park
inside the parking garage
at the gable 17 and
she heard a loud noise
and decided to leave
the parking garage.
- I confronted her
with the fact that
I actually saw someone
get out of her vehicle
and walk towards Dr. Hatcher.
- [Narrator] Immediately,
crystal's story changes.
- Crystal starts
making up stories
about she was just driving
along the park with her son
and this scary man jumped
in and told her to drive
or he was gonna kill her.
And then she drove to
the apartment complex
and had no idea what happened.
- [Narrator] However, she's
confronted with the fact
that there's no sign of
anyone who could be considered
to be her son on the tape.
- She switched up
the story to be
this friend of Brenda's and her
drove into the apartment complex
and the motive was
gonna be robbery
and she was just gonna
drive the getaway car
and they were going to
be away with some money
and she was going to get $500
and they were
gonna scare Kendra.
- [Narrator] But
crystal Cortes has done
no more than implicate herself.
- When crystal admitted
that Brenda paid her $500
to go to the parking garage
with this unknown male
who was armed with a
firearm, she self-admitted,
she put herself at
the crime scene.
That was enough to charge her.
We charged her with
capital murder.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile, Brenda
is still being interviewed
by detectives.
- The more I watched
Brenda Delgado,
the more I just
knew she was lying.
They kept the film running
when they would like
leave the room or
like, you know,
"do you want to take
a bathroom break?"
Or, "do you want some
snacks?" Or whatever.
So, they were friendly to her.
But there would be times when
she was on camera by herself,
detectives were out of the
room, talking to crystal Cortes.
- She was just like
oh, (mouthing silently).
And she was doing
things like this
and I think she was
realizing the trouble
that she had stepped into
and that what was happening
while the detectives
were interviewing her.
- [Narrator] Agent Barnes now
turns up the heat on Delgado.
- I began pressing
Brenda really hard
about where she was
at, what she was doing,
and why they were there and
what they were there for.
And I think that once I
began pressing buttons,
Brenda felt like she
was gonna unravel
and end up being charged, she
just asked for an attorney.
- [Narrator] Brenda
clearly hasn't been
to the scene of the murder.
Detectives don't have enough
evidence to charge her,
but instinctively they know
she is involved in some way.
- They felt they did not have
enough to issue a warrant
for arrest for murder, but
they wanted to hold her.
They ran her background check
and she had a whole bunch
of parking violations,
enough to be arrested.
- Collectively we decided
it would be better
to just put her in jail
for her traffic tickets
than to charge her with
murder and have to release her
if we couldn't
find enough details
to prove it at that point.
- [Narrator] But
Brenda has other plans.
- As soon as somebody
comes down here,
where she on her own,
pays the three or 400
dollars that's owed,
whatever's the fine
that's not paid,
as soon as you pay that,
they release you immediately,
and so it's not like you're
sticking them in jail
on some kind of a serious charge
where they're gonna have
to wait and see a judge
and you're gonna
have to go through
at least an 18-hour process.
You're putting her in there,
she's gonna be out
potentially in a few,
you know, a couple of, two
to four hours, which she was.
- We found out
that she left jail.
She caught a taxi
to a local hospital
and she called her father
and asked her father
to pick her up.
- [Narrator] Within hours,
Brenda Delgado flees the state
and crosses the
border into Mexico.
- She already had her
back-up plan in place
and at that point we were
just playing catch-up.
- [Narrator] Detectives now
believe that Brenda Delgado
is at the center of the
murder of Kendra hatcher.
- All of the early indicators
on this investigation
seem to point back to Brenda.
José didn't know Kendra;
Crystal didn't know Kendra;
it all pointed back at Brenda.
Brenda had the motive
to want Kendra dead.
(Dramatic music)
- [Narrator] In Dallas,
Texas, police are hunting
for Brenda Delgado, a
suspect in the murder
of 35-year-old dentist
Kendra hatcher.
Delgado has fled to
Mexico but investigators
are continuing to
question crystal Cortes,
Delgado's accomplice
who drove the Jeep
from which the killer
emerged to shoot Kendra.
However, they are still trying
to identify the shooter.
- Just crunching
down phone records
between Brenda and crystal,
we also located a phone
inside Brenda's apartment.
We got phone records
for that number
and all these phones had
a common phone number
that they were
communicating with
and we were able to
locate that phone number
and do some subpoenas for the
phone records on that phone.
- [Narrator] Police reach
out to federal agencies
for assistance.
- The FBI got involved about
a month after it happened.
At the time, they
hadn't identified
the shooter in the case.
They only knew him as Kris,
so they were looking
for help in that regard.
They had a telephone
number for Kris.
We were able to obtain
a search warrant
to obtain the real-time
location information
associated with that phone.
The pings on the phone brought
us to an apartment complex
in south Dallas.
- [Narrator] That same day,
crystal is brought in
for further questioning.
- She gives me a description
of the shooter's car
and she said he drives
a blue Chrysler sebring.
I pick my phone up and
I called the FBI agents
that were doing surveillance
out in this parking lot
and gave them the
car description
and they told me
that they see the car
in the same parking lot.
By watching the phone pings,
they noticed the
phone started moving
and they also noticed that
the blue Chrysler sebring
was moving at the same time
that the cellphone was moving.
And it pulls over
in a parking lot,
a couple of blocks away
from this apartment complex
and they walk up to
him and make contact.
- [Narrator] The man
is Kristopher love.
He is taken into custody
and the car is impounded.
- The car was towed
to the auto pound
and I began interviewing
Kristopher love.
I interviewed him all the way
through the course of the night
into the early morning
hours of October 2nd.
- Searching the car, they
didn't really find anything
and it was almost,
it was a little
bit of a dead end.
- [Narrator] Detectives
have drawn a blank,
so they turn to
another police resource
to intensify the investigation.
- A canine that was in
training at the time
was brought to the
Dallas auto pound.
The canine had been
trained to find explosives,
that could be anywhere from
gunpowder to bomb material, c4.
- They sniffed the car.
The dog wisely stopped
in a couple of places.
They found some residue
but they didn't find
enough evidence yet,
and then the dog zoomed
in on the console
in between the driver's
and passenger seat,
up the one side
and down the other.
So, that was super-helpful.
The investigators were
able to remove the panel
and lo and behold,
what's in there? A gun.
- [Narrator] Kristopher
love is confronted
with what the canine
has managed to uncover.
- Once I showed him a
picture of the firearm,
it was like somebody letting
the air out of a balloon.
His body language, he just
kind of sunk down in his chair,
his head dropped.
He tells me, "okay,
okay, I was there.
I was with crystal,
I got out of the Jeep
to walk over to
get Kendra's purse,
and crystal fired a shot
from the Jeep out the window
and it hit Kendra."
And he goes back into the
Jeep, and they drive away.
I saw the video and
what he was describing
was a scene out of
a James Bond movie.
There was no way crystal could
throw the car in reverse,
shoot out a passenger
window while backing up,
hit someone in the head
and one shot get it done.
And also the magazine
to the firearm
was laying next to the body.
So, I knew my shooter
was there close-range
and standing beside
Kendra whenever she died.
I actually pressed him a little
bit about being the shooter
and when he didn't feel
like there was any way out
and there was no
way to explain it
other than to tell the truth,
he asked for a lawyer.
- So, once he terminated
the interview,
I went back to my desk and
began typing his murder warrant,
capital murder warrant, and
he knocked on the door again.
He wanted to sit
and talk with me
and I told him I had to re-read
his Miranda warning again,
if he wanted to talk,
and he said okay.
And he just wanted to
ask me one question.
He wanted to know, why
did we let Brenda go?
I thought it was
pretty significant.
I thought that was
him saying hey,
you got me, now I
want you to get her.
- [Narrator] Crystal Cortes
is facing the inevitable.
- So, crystal was charged
with capital murder.
At some point she
agreed to a deal.
The deal was if you are truthful
and if you can testify
against Brenda,
we will recommend you
for 35 years to life.
But you will be pleading
guilty to capital murder.
- They needed crystal
to get to Brenda.
It was the only
opportunity for her.
17 and a half years.
You're eligible for parole.
You may or may not get
it, but you're eligible.
She's got a child.
She's got to be thinking
about a whole lot of things
and she doesn't want to be
locked up till the day she dies.
- She was the one who kind
of put the pieces together
for law enforcement, kind
of explained what happened
and allowed law
enforcement to arrest
the other people that
were involved in it.
- [Narrator] Detectives
know they have
crystal and Kristopher,
but now the spotlight
turns to Brenda Delgado.
They strongly suspect
that she has manipulated
the other two.
- One of the things that I
learned working this case
that Brenda was very
good at reading people.
She was able to sit
down with someone,
figure out who that person was,
figure out where
they were at in life
and specifically what
they needed in life.
- It was a business
transaction for them.
Should we beat him up, should
we kill her, should we...
They just handled it
as if it was business.
- She actually
offered crystal $500.
At the time crystal
was a single mother.
She was out of work because
her vehicle wasn't working
and she needed some mechanic
work done to her vehicle
and she didn't have the
money to get it done.
Brenda was able to figure
out that she needed money
to be able to go
to work every day
and take care of her child
and so she just kind
of dangled that carrot
in front of crystal to
get her to participate
in this murder.
- [Narrator] And it is
becoming apparent that Brenda
had lied to Kristopher in order
to manipulate him even further.
- Kristopher love
was a self-proclaimed
low-level drug dealer that
just moved to this Dallas area
and he wanted to be scarface.
He was looking forward
to being the next
up and coming drug
dealer in Dallas,
and Brenda picked up on that,
and that's what she offered him.
She told Kristopher that she
was part of a drug cartel
and that Kendra was actually
stealing drugs from the cartel
and if he participated
in this murder,
that he'd get a lifetime
supply of drugs.
- [Narrator] At the
center of everything
appears to be Brenda's
jealousy of Ricky's
new-found happiness with Kendra.
- I think her obsession
with Kendra hatcher
and losing Dr. Paniagua
was stronger than anything
she could think of.
She just had one goal in
mind and that was to either
hurt Dr. Paniagua, which was
one of the very first things
that came into their minds,
or remove Kendra hatcher
from the picture.
- On Brenda's phone, we
looked into the notes portion
of her phone and we
found an email address
for Ricardo and also a password.
Based on our interviews
with crystal,
crystal told us that Brenda
was able to track Ricardo
and she was able to
know where he was at.
- When Ricky and
Brenda were hooking up
the second time around,
Ricky was still helping her,
so they had a joint
cellphone account
and apparently that
account gave her access
to his phone online.
She had put tracking
software on his phone.
She was able to know where
that phone was, where he was.
- She would find his
location and she would go
and watch him and
then she would go
and have casual
encounters where she would
randomly bump into him and
have conversations with him.
- [Narrator] And her obsession
also extended to Kendra.
- In Brenda's phone she
had a bunch of pictures
and videos she downloaded
from Kendra's Facebook page.
She had been stalking
Ricardo and Kendra
at the same time, just
kind of staying up
with their relationship,
and I think she used
social media as a way
just to kind of figure
out what they were doing.
- [Narrator] It is
becoming clear that Brenda
was going to do whatever it
took to achieve her objective.
- Not only had she
approached crystal Cortes
and Kristopher love, we
interviewed some people
that she had approached before
about trying to convince them
to do the same thing,
namely her cousin,
having him attack Kendra
hatcher with a baseball bat.
He ultimately declined to do so,
so she had been
trying to find someone
who would carry this
out for some time.
- [Narrator] Crystal
was in too deep,
and was doing what
Brenda wanted.
- And speaking with crystal,
she told me that she
started going around
just talking to people
that they knew about,
you know, where
they could get a gun
and also if they would
be willing to help them
in this murder.
And through a mutual friend,
a gentleman by the
name of Kelly Ellis,
Kelly know Kristopher love
and he introduced them.
- For whatever reason
they just fell in
and the ball started rolling
and crystal started
agreeing to these things.
And she found a
shooter for Brenda,
she agreed to drive
the getaway vehicle,
she helped Brenda get rid
of evidence after the fact.
For $500 and some drugs.
- [Narrator] Delgado
was across the border.
In her mind, safe from the
authority of us law enforcement.
- My arrest authority ends
in the state of Texas,
and I think Brenda knew that.
She felt like she
was out of reach
of the Dallas police department,
but what she didn't plan for
is that we have a partnership
with the FBI and they've got
a worldwide jurisdiction.
- When people try to flee
the us to another country
to escape justice, that
always is a Thorn in my side.
So, I always give those cases
a little extra attention
because I wanna make sure
these people get caught
and brought back to the us.
I don't want people thinking
that they can flee our borders
and not answer the charges
that are brought against them.
- The FBI felt like the
longer that she was free,
the longer that she was
evading law enforcement,
that we were at risk for her
committing another offense.
- [Narrator] Dallas police now
move to make Brenda Delgado
an international
fugitive from justice.
- We were able to get her
on the FBI most wanted list.
I was pretty excited
about it because I knew
that I would get my
shot at her again.
- [Narrator] In 2016,
Dallas police and the FBI
are continuing
their investigation
into the murder of 35-year-old
dentist, Kendra hatcher.
Investigators have
apprehended the man
who pulled the trigger,
Kristopher love,
and the getaway
driver, crystal Cortes.
However, they are still
searching for the woman
they believe orchestrated
the crime, Brenda Delgado,
who was a fugitive in Mexico
and on the FBI's
most wanted list.
Detectives and agents
now intensified
their search for Delgado.
- We started interviewing
extended family members,
to see if we could get any
cooperation from them.
Initially we weren't successful.
They didn't want to co-operate.
But ultimately some of them did
and that was very helpful
in ultimately locating her.
- I believe the phone was
instrumental in tracking.
They were able to pick
up who she was calling
and where money
transfers were being made
for her to have money
to live on out there.
- We received information
that her family
was sending her money via
some money transfer business,
and we were able to
corroborate some of that.
We saw some money going
down to a state in Mexico
where we knew she had relatives.
- [Narrator] This information
is further corroborated
by a tip directly
to investigators.
- We received
information that Brenda
was at a specific
location in Mexico
and the tipster began
providing detailed information
of where Brenda was at.
- It allowed us to identify
her exact location in Mexico
and we relayed that to
Mexican Interpol officers
and they arrested her, you know,
within hours after we
passed on that information.
- [Narrator] Texas
authorities move to extradite
Brenda Delgado from Mexico
to the United States.
- It's a long
process to do that.
Our state department has
to reach out to comparable,
whoever is the comparable
authority in Mexico City.
I mean, I don't remember
how long that process took,
but I mean, six
months to a year.
I mean, it was a good while.
- [Narrator] For
the process to work,
certain conditions must be met.
- Brenda was a dual citizen,
Mexico citizenship and
American citizenship,
and Mexico has a standing policy
that they do not extradite
any of their nationals,
any of their citizens into
a death penalty situation.
- The deal was that
she would not be
put to death here in the states,
so in order for us to apprehend
her and bring her back,
we had to agree to that.
- We flew to Mexico
on October 5th, 2016.
We met Mexican authorities
in a hangar at the airport.
We searched her.
We placed the restraints on her
that she would be
wearing on the flight.
We were able to board the flight
before any of the
other passengers,
through the back entrance
and flew back to Dallas-fort
worth airport non-stop.
- I actually met her
when she arrived here.
I was the first
face that she saw
when she walked in
the airport hangar.
I'm a pretty competitive person,
and even though I
didn't get a chance
to interview her again,
in my mind I was like,
I told you I was gonna get you.
- [Narrator] Prosecutors
now need to prepare
for three trials.
Brenda Delgado, crystal
Cortes and Kristopher love.
- I've been working in
Dallas homicide unit
for a little over nine years
and out of every murderer
that I've come across,
Kristopher love is about
as cold as any murderer
that I've dealt with.
No sign of remorse, no sign
of emotion, no sign of regret.
- This is a vicious,
vicious, vicious person.
- Kristopher love was
sentenced to death.
He's still on death row
from what I understand
and I don't know if a date's
been set yet for that.
- [Narrator] Crystal Cortes'
fate has already been
more or less agreed.
- Crystal was charged with
capital murder as well.
Based on her agreement to
testify against Kristopher
and also to testify
against Brenda,
she was given 35
years in prison.
- [Narrator] In the
case of Brenda Delgado,
prosecutors paint a picture
of a ruthless manipulator.
- They did a great
job at pointing out
the specific facts
of this investigation
and just kind of like,
laying out who Brenda was.
You know, that she's not
just this pretty face
that you see sitting
in a courtroom,
that this lady is a monster.
- I don't think she
even thought much
about covering her tracks.
It was all about
getting this done.
This focus of I need to get
Kendra hatcher out of the way
so I can get Ricky back.
- Brenda had a very
blank look on her face,
almost like she was in disbelief
that she was actually
sitting in this courtroom
and that she was being held
accountable for what she did.
- I don't really know that
she felt right and wrong.
I don't really know
that she felt any guilt.
The best word I can come
up with is sociopathic.
- She just appeared
to be very nonchalant
and like everything was okay
and it would be
until the very end.
- [Narrator] When
the jury deliberates,
they are able to come
to a quick decision.
- So I was going down the
escalator and this is,
I mean, a little less 20
minutes since the jury went out,
and I get a text message,
"we've got a verdict."
- I think we
startled some folks.
We came back in half an hour.
It was not flippant, however;
It was not off-the-cuff.
We came back into the jury room
and someone suggested that
we take a sample look,
this is the gut check vote,
let's just write
down what we think
and then we'll start
talking about it.
So, a woman volunteered
to capture the notes.
We all wrote down
what we thought
and she opened them up and
they were all in one pile,
one after the other:
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
- That's very unusual.
In a capital murder case
for the jury to come back,
I heard estimates of 18 to 20
minutes that they deliberated.
Yeah, that's unheard of,
so they were convinced
beyond a reasonable doubt
that she committed this crime.
(Dramatic music)
(Calm piano music)
First and foremost, this was
a Dallas police department
homicide investigation and
everybody understood their roles
and everybody understood
that the primary goal
was to identify everybody
who was involved
in this murder for hire and
to get everybody arrested
and in a courtroom to face
the charges against them,
and I think every agency
did a great job at that.
- I think working
cases like this
just makes it hard for
you to trust individuals,
but on a positive note,
it's kind of offset
by all the positives
that I learned
from working with the family
and also the detectives
on this case.
- [Narrator] There may
be a victory of sorts
in the convictions,
but for the family of Kendra
hatcher, there is just loss.
- The thing that bothered
me the most about this case
was this could have been anyone.
Kendra is a truly
innocent victim
and she never saw
any of this coming.
For her to be ambushed
and assassinated
in a parking garage
like a animal.
It just kind of, it bothered me.
And it is one of those things
that you just never forget.
- It's such a senseless,
tragic loss of life
that didn't need to happen.
Just the lengths that
someone would go to
to try to get back
with an ex-boyfriend.
That's very chilling and
it's a stark reminder
of kind of the world we live in.
- [Narrator] Nothing
anyone can do
will bring Kendra hatcher back,
and for her family, the
pain of losing her endures.
- For the family, I don't
feel there's closure.
The word is a great word.
We hear it and we think
curtains are shut,
and we can no longer
see what's behind them.
But I do not believe that
there is true closure
in a case like this.
- Their daughter, sister was
taken from them in an instant,
without any warning
and without any reason.
So, I don't know how you
come to terms with that.
It's gotta be
extremely difficult.
- We can never bring back
Kendra, but we can say,
hey, we got the people
that were responsible.
(Somber music)